Trevlyn Hold Part 42

"Did you tell him?" quickly cried Rupert.

"I did, sir. I didn't mean to, but it come out incautious-like. I called you the young heir to his face, and excused myself by saying the stranger had been calling you so, and I spoke out the same without thought. Then he wanted to know what stranger, and all about him. It was when Madam was resting here after the accident. Chattaway rode by and saw her, and got off his horse: it was the first he knew of the accident. If what I said didn't frighten him, I never had a day's rheumatiz in my life. His face went as white as Madam's."

"Chattaway go white!" scoffed Rupert. "What next? I tell you what it is, Mark; you fancy things. Aunt Edith may have been white; she often is; but not he. Chattaway knows that Trevlyn Hold is his, safe and sure.

Nothing can take it from him--unless Squire Trevlyn came to life again, and made a fresh will. He's not likely to do that, Mark."

"No; he's not likely to do that," a.s.sented the old man. "Once we're out of this world, Master Rupert, we don't come back again. The injustice we have left behind us can't be repaired that way."

Rupert rose. He went to the window, opened it, and leaned out whistling.

He was tired of the subject as touching himself; had long looked upon it as an unprofitable theme. As he stood there enjoying the calmness of the evening the tall man with the white beard came back again down the avenue.

Mr. Daw, for he it was, had the red umbrella in his hand. He turned his head to the window as he pa.s.sed it, looked steadily at Rupert, paused, went close up, and put his hand on Rupert's arm.

"You are Rupert Trevlyn?"

"Yes," replied Rupert.

"I should have known you anywhere from your resemblance to your father; I should have known you had I met you in the crowded streets of London.

You are wonderfully like him."

"Where did you know my father?" inquired Rupert.

Instead of answering, the stranger opened the house-door and stepped into the room. Ann curtseyed; old Canham rose and stood with his hat in his hand--that white beard seemed to demand respect. He--the stranger--took Rupert's hand in his.

"I have been up to the house to inquire for you: but they told me you were not well, and had gone to rest."

"Did they?" said Rupert. "I had intended to lie down, but the evening was so pleasant that I came out instead. You spoke of my father: did you know him?"

"I knew him very well," said the stranger, taking the seat Ann had been dusting before offering; a ceremony she apparently considered a mark of respect. "Though my acquaintance with him was short, it was close. Do you know who baptized you?"

"No," replied Rupert, rather astonished at the question.

"I did. I christened your sister Maude; I baptized you. You were to be christened in England, your mother said, but she wished you baptized ere the journey commenced, and I did it when you were only a day old. Ah, poor thing! she hoped to make the journey with you when she should be strong enough; but another journey claimed her--that of death! Before you were two days old she died. It was I who wrote to announce your birth to Squire Trevlyn; it was I who, by the next post, announced your mother's death. It was I--my young friend, it was I--who buried your father and your mother."

"You are a clergyman, then?" said Rupert, somewhat dubious about the beard, and the very unclerical cut of the stranger altogether.

It may be that Mr. Daw noticed the doubtful glances, and entered upon an explanation. How, when a working curate, he had married a young lady of fortune, but of delicate health, and had gone abroad with her, throwing up for the time his clerical preferment. The doctors had said that a warm climate was essential to her; as they had said, if you remember, in the case of Joe Trevlyn. It happened that both parties sought the same place--the curate and his wife, Joe and Mrs. Trevlyn--and a close friendship sprang up between them. A short time and Joe Trevlyn died; a shorter time still, and his wife died. There was no English clergyman near the spot, and Mr. Daw gave his services. He baptized the children; he buried the parents. His own fate was a happier one, for his wife lived. She lived, but did not grow strong. It may be said--you have heard of such cases--that she only existed from day to day. She had so existed all through those long years; from that time until within a few months of this. "If you attempt to take her back to England, she will not live a month," the local medical men had said; and perhaps they were right. He had gone to the place for a few months' sojourn, and never left it for over twenty years. It reads like a romance. His wife's fortune had enabled him to live comfortably, and in a pecuniary point of view there was no need to seek preferment or exercise his calling. He would never seek it now. Habit and use are second nature, and the Reverend William Daw had learnt to be an idle man; to love the country of his adoption, his home in the Pyrenees; to believe that its genial climate had become necessary to himself. His business in England concluded (it was connected with his late wife's will), he was hastening back to it. Had preferment been offered him, he would have doubted his ability to fulfil its duties after so many years of leisure. The money that was his wife's would be his for the remainder of his days; so on that score he was at rest. In short, the Reverend William Daw had degenerated into a useless man; one to whom all exertion had become a trouble. He honestly confessed to it now, as he sat before Rupert Trevlyn; told him he had been content to live wholly for the country of his adoption, almost completely ignoring his own; had kept up no correspondence with it. Of friends he could, as a young curate, boast but few, and he had been at no pains to keep them. At first he had believed that six or twelve months would be the limit of his absence from England, and he was content to let friendships await his return.

But he did not return; and the lapsed correspondence was too pleasant to his indolent tastes to be reopened. He told all this quietly now to Rupert Trevlyn, and said that to it he owed his ignorance of the deposition of Rupert from Trevlyn Hold. Mr. Freeman was one of his few old college friends, and he might have heard all about it years ago had he only written to him.

"I cannot understand how Mr. Chattaway should have succeeded," he cried, bending his dark eyes upon Rupert. "I can scarcely believe the fact now; it has amazed me, as one may say. Had there been no direct male heir; had your father left only Maude, for instance, I could have understood its being left away from her, although it would have been unjust."

"The property is not entailed," said Rupert.

"I am aware of that. During the last few months of your father's life, we were like brothers, and I knew all particulars as well as he did. He had married in disobedience to his father's will, but he never for a moment glanced at the possibility of disinheritance. I cannot understand why Squire Trevlyn should have willed the estate from his son's children."

"He only knew of Maude--as they say."

"Still less can I understand how Mr. Chattaway can keep it. Were an estate willed to me, away from those who had a greater right to it, I should never retain it. I could not reconcile it to my conscience to do so. How can Mr. Chattaway?"

Rupert laughed--he believed that conscience and Mr. Chattaway had not a great deal to do with each other. "It is not much Mr. Chattaway would give up voluntarily," he observed. "Were my grandfather alive, Chattaway would not resign Trevlyn Hold to him, unless forced to it."

Old Canham could contain himself no longer. The conversation did not appear to be coming to the point. "Be you going to help young Master Rupert to regain his rights, sir?" he eagerly asked.

"I would--if I knew how to do it," said Mr. Daw. "I shall certainly represent to Mr. Chattaway the injustice--the wicked injustice--of the present state of things. When I wrote to the Squire on the occasion of your birth and Mrs. Trevlyn's death," looking at Rupert, "the answers to me were signed 'J. Chattaway,'--the writer being no doubt this same Mr.

Chattaway. He wrote again, after Squire Trevlyn's death, requesting me to despatch the nurse and children to England."

"Oh, yes," said Rupert carelessly, "it was safe enough for us to come then. Squire Trevlyn dead, and the estate willed to Chattaway, there was no longer danger from me. If my grandfather had got to know that I was in existence, there would have been good-bye to Chattaway's ambition. At least people say so; _I_ don't know."

The indifferent tone forcibly struck Mr. Daw. "Don't _you_ feel the injustice?" he asked. "Don't you care that Trevlyn Hold should be yours?"

"I have grown up seeing the estate Chattaway's, and I suppose I don't feel it as I ought to. Of course, I should like it to be mine, but as it never can be mine, it is as well not to think about it. Have you heard of the Trevlyn temper?" he continued, a merry smile dancing in his eyes as he threw them on the stranger.

"I have."

"They tell me I have inherited it, as I suppose a true Trevlyn ought to do. Were I to think too much of the injustice, it might rouse the temper; and it would answer no end, you know."

"Yes, I have heard of the Trevlyn temper," repeated the stranger. "I have heard what it did for the first heir, Rupert Trevlyn."

"But it did not do it for him," pa.s.sionately returned Rupert. "I never heard until the other day--not so many hours ago--of the slur that was cast upon his name. It was not he who shot the man; he had no hand in it: it was proved so later. Ask old Canham."

"Well, well," said the stranger, "it's all past and done with. Poor Joe reposed every confidence in me; treating me as a brother. It was a singular coincidence that the Squire's sons should both die abroad. I hope," he added, looking kindly at Rupert, "that yours will be a long life. Are you--are you strong?"

The question was put hesitatingly. He had heard from Nora that Rupert was not strong; and now that he saw him he was painfully struck with his delicate appearance. Rupert answered bravely.

"I should be very well if it were not for that confounded Blackstone walk night and morning. It's that knocks me up."

"Chattaway had no call to put him to it, sir," interrupted Mark Canham again. "It's not work for a Trevlyn."

"Not for the heir of Trevlyn Hold," acquiesced the stranger. "But I must be going. I have not seen my friend Freeman yet, and should like to be at the railway station when he arrives. What time shall I see you in the morning?" he added, to Rupert. "And what time can I see Mr. Chattaway?"

"You can see me at any time," replied Rupert. "But I can't answer for him. He breakfasts early, and generally goes out afterwards."

Had the Reverend William Daw been able to glance through a few trunks of trees, he might have seen Mr. Chattaway then. For there, hidden amidst the trees of the avenue, only a few paces from the lodge, was he.

Mr. Chattaway was pretty nearly beside himself that night. When he found that Rupert Trevlyn was not in the house, vague fears, to which he did not wait to give a more tangible name, rushed over his imagination. Had Rupert stolen from the house to meet this dangerous stranger clandestinely? He--Chattaway--scarcely knowing what he did, seized his hat and followed the stranger down the avenue, when he left the Hold after his fruitless visit.

Not to follow him openly and say, "What is your business with Rupert Trevlyn?" Cords would not have dragged Mr. Chattaway into that dreaded presence until he was sure of his ground.

He stole down with a fleet foot on the soft gra.s.s beside the avenue, and close upon the lodge he overtook the stranger. Mr. Chattaway glided into the trees.

Peeping from his hiding-place, he saw the stranger pause before the lodge window: heard him accost Rupert Trevlyn; watched him enter. And there he had been since,--altogether in an agony both of mind and body.

Do as he would, he could not hear their conversation. The sound of voices came upon him through the open window, but not the words spoken: and nearer he dared not go.

Hark! they were coming out. Chattaway's eyes glared and his teeth were set, as he cautiously looked round. The man's ugly red umbrella was in one hand; the other was laid on Rupert's shoulder. "Will you walk with me a little way?" he heard the stranger say.

"No, not this evening," was Rupert's reply. "I must go back to the Hold."